


A Good Man at Your Back

by HSavinien



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Canon Character of Color, Friendship/Love, M/M, Post-Canon, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-22
Updated: 2013-02-22
Packaged: 2017-12-03 05:28:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/694682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HSavinien/pseuds/HSavinien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhodey is Tony's favorite soldier and the only other person he lets have a suit of the armor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Good Man at Your Back

**Author's Note:**

> Tony's diction in my head is full of many asides, addenda, and sidetracks.

Rhodey is a surprise. Well, he's  _sort_   _of_  a surprise, in that Tony never actually expects to sleep with him. Tony offers, of course, flirts with him, compliments his ass in his dress uniform, mods his tech as far as Rhodey will let him and sometimes even  _tells_ him ahead of time when he's installing new surprise!features. But Rhodey doesn't respond beyond rolling his eyes and elbowing him in the stomach when Tony ignores his “personal space” issues too often. (On one memorable occasion, Rhodey conspires with Pepper in tricking him into attending a totally unwarranted sexual harassment seminar, which works insomuch as it dissuades Tony from grabbing his ass in a totally macho, male-bonding-type way in front of other military-types.) Tony adores him, just as Tony adores Pepper and JARVIS for not taking his shit (even though he  _technically_ employs them/is JARVIS' creator) and being all competent and useful in totally different ways than Tony himself. So yeah. Rhodey. Rhodey's hot, obviously, in a clean-shaven, poster-boy, jock way. Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes, Tony's very own Marine! Liaison, same difference.

And then, Tony lets him have a suit. Well, manipulates him into taking it, close enough. (War Machine? Seriously?   _Seriously_? That's the best the US military PR people could come up with?) And he doesn't mind, because it's Rhodey and even if he is Mr. Poster-boy, Tony trusts him not to let it fall into the wrong hands. (And if he's wrong, well, that's what contingency plans are for. Tony's been wrong about...well, a lot, considering he's a genius.)

But Tony loves Rhodey and trusts him as much as he trusts any human (Rhodey's tied with Pepper). Rhodey goes drinking with him and makes fun of him and plays “blow shit up” with him and laughs at his robot-induced rants of frustration and tolerates his flirting and gives him shit about his drinking and goes flying with him and gets his shiny Marine self into grungy jeans and a t-shirt once in a while to fuck around and get greasy with some of Tony's cars.

After Manhattan happens, and Tony totally does not die (score one for technology and green rage-monsters!), Tony nags Rhodey to come visit the ex-“Stark” Tower, current “A” Tower, possibly future “Potts” Tower depending on how angry Pepper gets after the next quarter stockholders' meeting. He doesn't. Something about “Work, Tony” and “Missions, Tony” and “It's three a.m., Tony, I will convince Dummy to switch your coffee for decaf if you don't quit calling me between midnight and eight a.m.” and stuff like that. Tony does not, in fact, see Rhodey until he shows up one day with the War Machine armor in tow and a briefing packet (on _paper_ , it's ridiculous) about a joint US military/SHIELD operation that Director Fury wants to send their whole dog-and-pony Avengers Initiative on. Tony throws his arm around Rhodey and has some of the 'bots drag the armor down to the lab and introduces his very favorite soldier around to the bunch of lunatics with whom he shares his Tower.

Rhodey and Clint and Natasha just all sort of nod at each other in wary respect and then they run off to play hide and seek in the ventilation system (no more dropped ceilings allowed in Tony's building plans,  _ever_ , by the way, but they'd reached a compromise on the ventilation ducts). Bruce radiates a sort of forced calm and polishes his glasses too much, but Rhodey is nice to him and looks adorably clueless when Tony explains the new polymer that he and Bruce are building. (Rhodey's possibly Tony's equal when it comes to aerospace engineering, but polymers? Not so much.) Then it's lunchtime, which is convenient, because Steve can reliably be found anytime food is in the offing, so Tony plants both of them in the Avengers' designated kitchen and watches fondly as they are awkward and polite and military at each other. When Rhodey mentions that someone named Gabriel Jones was one of his inspirations in his career, Steve lights up like someone's turned on an arc reactor and tells a story about Jones busting up a HYDRA base with him. Tony makes himself a sandwich and eats it and tunes them out, drawing up some wave equations on his StarkPad. When they start winding down, he prods Rhodey at the food, then pokes him as he eats it, convinces Rhodey that his precious briefing packet will be safe with Steve (“And he needs to read it anyway, so he can brief everybody, c'mon, he doesn't need you standing at his elbow while you do it”), and drags him down to the lab to suit up.

“Come on,” he demands. “Flying buddy! Let's get in the sky.”

“Wasting government res-”

“Tell them I need to see how it performs so I can make repairs, whatever,” Tony insists. “Suit up. Chop chop.”

Rhodey rolls his eyes, but sheds his outer layer to reveal a microfiber shirt and pair of pants, so it's not like he didn't plan ahead for this. He puts on the suit, Tony prodding it and humming resignedly at the weapons systems. Once War Machine is fully armored, Tony steps into his suit-up stand and grins at Rhodey's expression as the machines smoothly slot the armor on, piece by piece.

“I know. It's awesome,” Tony says smugly, then snaps the faceplate down. “Up, up and away, flyboy,” he adds over the com.

Rhodey powers up his repulsors and follows Tony out onto the balcony and then into the sky. They zip out of the city (no skyscraper tag, Tony's kind of lost his taste for it) and over open water.

It's  _fun_. Rhodey scolds him a little for the whole bomb thing, but not too much, which is only fair considering that Tony had saved the whole city and much of the surrounding area from a bunch of government fuckwits and also, again, not died. Mostly, though, they play. Tony chases Rhodey and Rhodey chases Tony and Tony shows off his new systems and Rhodey refuses to shoot at him even though the suit wouldn't even be scratched, but whatever. War Machine's in good shape for once, which means that they've probably actually been listening to Rhodey when he explains the maintenance schedule for desert combat. So that's good.

“Gonna come play with us on this job?” Tony asks.

“That's why I'm here. They don't exactly let the War Machine out for superhero playdates without a good reason.”

Tony laughs. “Too bad.”

Rhodey sighs in a crackle of static. “Tony, not all of us do this for fun.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Hey, watch this.” Tony cuts power and drops in a perfect dive into the water.

Rhodey squawks, but after Tony laughs at him, he sighs again. Tony pops back out and gives him a thumbs up. “Very nice, Tony. How space-worthy are you? I mean...” War Machine gestures at the sky.

“Yeah, that was a good test-run,” Tony agrees. “Moreso than I was. Race you to the bridge!” He takes off and Rhodey's got a head start because he's closer, but Tony is a dirty cheat and blasts a repulsor at the right angle to send a sudden wave right in Rhodey's face and knock him off course for a fraction of a second.

***

That evening, they get melancholy over a couple beers (just beer, Tony's watching himself) and really bad TV and Tony ends up half in Rhodey's lap and, oddly enough, Rhodey seems to be fine with it. Rhodey's hand lands on the back of Tony's neck and Tony pets his short hair and mutters incoherent, fond things. Rhodey rolls his eyes.

“Tony, are you drunk?”

“No,” he murmurs. “Crashing a little, though.”

Rhodey hums.  "I believe it."  Tony turns his head and kisses Rhodey. Not aggressively. He's not in the mood for that. Just sort of quietly. Rhodey kisses him back a little, but mostly strokes the back of Tony's neck. “Yeah, well, try me when you're awake, then.”

Tony nods and yawns. “Come on.”

He drags Rhodey to his bedroom and dumps everything but his boxers on the floor, strips Rhodey's shirt off him and pulls him to bed. Rhodey laughs at him, but follows, and they both slide into sleep soon after, back to back together. That's good. It's good to have someone at his back, the weirdness of team-mates aside.


End file.
